


Blanket of Stone

by lurknomoar



Category: The Course of Honor - Avoliot
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, Slice of Life, past abusive relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-22 00:35:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13155399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lurknomoar/pseuds/lurknomoar
Summary: Loving someone is wonderful. Getting used to them might be even better.





	Blanket of Stone

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Course of Honour](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9720611) by [Avoliot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avoliot/pseuds/Avoliot). 



It was well past midnight by the time Jainan got home. He didn’t stumble home, not quite: just because he felt safe didn’t mean he stopped valuing his dignity. He walked slowly, at an even pace, putting one foot carefully after the other, dizzy with exhaustion and wanting nothing more than to be back home, back in Kiem’s arms, and then to finally pass out.

It’s been a long day at the university, a long frustrating complicated day comparing statistics from failed excavation sites and then rewriting the timing algorithm on the collapse-alert protocol. And the hard part wasn’t the work, even though the work was undeniably excruciatingly difficult, it was the unfortunate fact that he had to cooperate with others, with Gairad who was promising, but fought over the slightest detail as if it were a personal insult, and her junior colleague Larnov, who was not unintelligent, but lacked initiative to the extent he needed his hand held through anything more complex than basic laser refraction calculations. It took a lot out of Jainan to navigate having employees, to advise and order them without exploiting his position, to listen to them without knuckling under. By sundown, he had one of those insidious, creeping headaches, and then they kept on working, the snowglare replaced with artificial light, the others yawning but too proud to give up before Jainan did, and Jainan could have told himself it was professionalism, but in truth, he himself was also too proud and stubborn to give up before he had the problem figured out.

He walked into the room (their room), tired and relieved, finally allowing his shoulders to sag, his vacant smile to turn into something less cheerful but more real. He took a deep breath to say hello, but before he got the word out, he found himself with an armful of Kiem.

“Hi hello I missed you,” said Kiem, burying his face in Jainan’s neck. Jainan felt his left hand rise with no conscious input on his part to tangle itself into Kiem’s hair, like that was the default place it was supposed to rest.

“Me too” mumbled Jainan, feeling strange, light-headed, floaty, exhausted beyond words. Kiem’s hair was still a little wet, and his skin smelled more like soap than sweat, he must have already taken a shower. He was wearing one of his old, worn shirts he only wore around the apartment. It was a faded yellow, with a presumably humorous slogan on it that has become illegible after being machine-washed too many times.

Kiem’s lips found his, gentle and soft and tasting slightly of toothpaste, and Jainan sank into the kiss gratefully. The world disappeared and time halted and Jainan stopped thinking.

When thinking resumed, it was because he could feel Kiem’s hand undo the clasps at the back of his uniform to caress the naked skin, and with a jolt Jainan realised that Kiem was hard, slowly grinding against Jainan’s thigh. Jainan hated himself for it the moment the thought crossed his mind, but it did cross his mind: I wish I didn’t have to.

He inhaled. He exhaled. He didn’t have to if he didn’t want to. And while Kiem’s lips on his neck made him feel shivery good, even now, it did nothing to mitigate the deadening, almost nauseous numbness of exhaustion.

“Not up for it, tonight,” he said, quietly. He managed to get it out on the first try, steady and natural, without rehearsing it in his head ten times over: he distantly marvelled over how easy things were, with Kiem.

“S’ fair,” said Kiem, pressing a parting kiss against his neck.

“But once I’ve had some sleep, I’m going to – You’ll need to head off to that brunch meeting at ten forty, latest, so if we set the alarm for eight, that still gives us two hours, two twenty. I can make you last that long, I think, if I go about it the right way.”

“Now _that_ wasn’t fair,” grumbled Kiem, but it was an amicable grumble. Fond. Jainan kept forgetting that for some reason, his matter-of-fact voice affected Kiem far more than anything he said when he was deliberately trying to sound sexy.

Kiem re-did the top clasp on his robe, and took a half-step back, still within arm’s reach, but no longer pushed against Jainan.

“So are you hungry? I’ve eaten, but there’s some left-over fish stew I can warm up, and I can make noodles too in five minutes, or a sandwich maybe?”

“I’ve eaten.” He had: the whole research crew had takeaway, greasy cubes of some sort of deep-fried root vegetable. While she was scarfing down her portion from the folded-up paper cone it came in, Gairad remarked that this dish was one of the few reasons she even stuck around on the wretched planet of Iskat in the first place.

“Glass of water, then?”

“Thanks.” Jainan shook his head, trying to clear it a little. He felt gritty and clammy and in need of a shower. “I’ll wash.”

He washed himself quickly, efficiently – then he forgot what he was doing, and spaced out under the hot stream of water for at least five minutes, his eyes closed, his mind blank. He felt offended, almost childishly sulky at the realisation that he won’t be allowed to sleep in the shower, but must dry off, dress and get into bed before he falls asleep. The thought that Kiem was presumably in the bed too – that helped a little.

Kiem was indeed in bed, sitting up against a pillow, immersed in something he was reading on a handheld. Jainan ambled over, and pulled the blanket over himself: the room was a few degrees colder than he liked. But Kiem was used to the clean, dry chillness of the palace, and Jainan found this was one of the few things where he truly did not mind the compromise. He could just shrug on an extra layer, or better, draw closer to Kiem, who always gave off heat like the trunk of a sun-warmed tree.

He settled in, arranging the heavy, green synthfiber blanket so that it covered his shoulders, and curled towards Kiem: not touching, not quite cuddling, just turning so that when he opened his eyes, Kiem would be right there.

Kiem noticed the dip of the bed, smiled a little smile of recognition, and clicked the lights off. He put his right hand on Jainan’s back, petting him over the blanket, and Jainan felt like he was blissfully sinking below the surface of the day. His mind was overfull of charts and calculations, and for a confused, half-asleep second, he saw himself as a thin layer of ore buried safe under layers and layers of stone.

Then Kiem huffed out a quiet swearword under his breath, squinting at the handheld and irately tapping at the screen, and the moment was broken.

“What is that?” asked Jainan, although what actually came out of his mouth was slurred almost to the point of incomprehensibility.

“It’s just…” said Kiem. “It’s this educational game. I borrowed it last week, at the opening of the new interactive terminals of the Girka Library Hub.”

“What’s it about?”

Kiem turned the screen towards him: above colourful, stylised images of blocks, levers and wires, loud lettering proclaimed _Playful Engineering Lessons for Pupils Prime Five-Six._

“I wanted to have an idea of what you were working on,” said Kiem, a little sheepish. “But I figured, I have no clue about engineering, so why not start at the beginning? And this lesson plan is actually fun, it lets me simulate building little circuits, and it has a firework animation whenever I get an equation right.”

Jainan was momentarily stunned, gazing up at Kiem’s face in the flickering greenish light of the handheld. He wanted to say _I love you_ , but the words seemed hopelessly insufficient, nowhere near enough.

“Good night,” he murmured instead, and struggled up onto his elbows to give Kiem a brief kiss.

“Should I shut off the handheld? Does the light bother you?”

“No. It’s fine.” Jainan took one last look at Kiem, marvelling at his goodness, his kindness, the loveliness of his face, the softness of his hair and the all-over him-ness of him, before his eyes fell closed, and he drifted off to sleep.


End file.
